


Izanami in the Land of the Dead

by ShoshannaRose



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Amnesia, Bisexuality, F/F, F/M, Female Uchiha Sasuke, No Uchiha Massacre, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Rape Recovery, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 13:24:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3489845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShoshannaRose/pseuds/ShoshannaRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orochimaru wants the Sharingan, preferably in the body of the youngest generation. When Itachi fights him off, he goes for the little sister instead. Two and a half years later, the Uchiha family navigates in the wake of her return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [to lead the travelers off the beaten path](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3382550) by [KatRoma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatRoma/pseuds/KatRoma). 



> This is just wrong on so many levels, to be honest. Midterm week was emotionally draining, and I guess I took it out like this? 
> 
> Oh, and this is awkwardly inspired by probably the best girl!Sasuke series ever ("of pinwheels and paper daffodils"), and in the specific story "to lead the travelers off the beaten path" there's a line about girl!Sasuke marrying Shisui if the family had been alive. A whole AU got created around that. Yeah, I don't get it either.

In the beginning, things are blurry, as though Suki, as the voices call her, is submerged beneath waves. There’re two voices, but they often become one; sometimes the world smells sterile, others rotten; colors make little sense, and her vision is far some clear. You’re safe, one voice says more often than not as a hand with large, callused fingers strokes her hair. Suki, you’re safe as long you’re here.

Suki thinks she’d be safest anywhere but here, even if she were still in the dark. She thinks it might be better she never finds the voice.

Then, eventually, there’s nothing. She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps. Things aren’t blurry, but there’s something heavy across her eyes, blocking her sight, and something across her chest makes it difficult to breathe. A tasteless cloth is slotted into her mouth, and when she wakes, she feels the fingers in her hair, or on her hand. Now it grounds her, remind her of the moments when the darkness is no longer a dream.

Oh, Suki, the voice says. What did they do to you?

She doesn’t understand what that means yet, and sleeps until she’s free.

 

 

There were two voices, as Suki thought. The man who reassured her of her safety is Orochimaru, who saved her after a mission gone terribly wrong when she accidently killed her entire team. According to Kabuto, the medical-nin and other voice, Suki’s loss of memory is the result of trauma from the event, and a genjutsu the extraction team leader used on her as torture and interrogation before her death. Luckily for her, Orochimaru saw her potential, and saved her life.

Though this doesn't feel much like saving, Suki has a feeling it’s better she holds her opinions to herself. “What am I supposed to do now?” she asks instead. “I can’t even remember what I _can_ do.”

With a smile, Kabuto says, “That’s all muscle memory. A few training lessons is all it’ll take for you to be back on your feet.”

“You’re going to work for me, Suki,” Orochimaru says, placing a hand on her shoulder. Her skin burns in discomfort at the touch. “I’ll keep you away from any Konoha-nin. You’re under my protection.”

Clearly, she isn’t getting a choice in the matter. Maybe it’s better that way, because she’s so confused she can barely think. “Thanks,” she says, and adds, “Orochimaru-sama,” because she feels like she should.

It’s a relief when Orochimaru drops his hand to lead the way to her new room. Suki tries not to show it, and concentrates on following her new employer on unsteady feet down the long, dark halls.

 

 

On the first day, Suki stares at herself in the mirror, trying to place anything on her body to a memory. There’re faint circular scars scattered throughout her body like pale freckles, and the raised mark of a childhood scrape left on her elbow. Her hair is longer than advisable for a kunoichi, falling to the small of her back with bangs cut loose framing her face.

Her skin is pale, more so than is usually found in the Land of Fire, and her eyes so brown they’re nearly black. She’s small—ribs showing just enough, like she doesn’t eat as much as she should, and short. Since neither Orochimaru nor Kabuto heard her age, they can only guess. Twelve is the best they can come up with, and close to thirteen, because she might be small, but her body isn’t necessarily childish. Maybe she would remember if she had more scars. Maybe she should be happy that she doesn’t.

Whatever genjutsu the Konoha-nin used was strong, she decides eventually, giving up, because nothing comes. It will eventually, or at least hopefully, because no matter how traumatic it was, anything sounds better than the emptiness in her head.

 

 

When Suki closes her eyes and focuses hard enough on remembering the nameless team she killed, she pictures a flurry of yellow and orange. She doesn’t know what it means, but it’s a start.

That’s a private memory, and one she doesn’t share with Orochimaru. Despite the number of people Suki’s comes in contact with in any given week, it doesn’t cross her mind to confide in anyone else. She learns quick enough that Orochimaru doesn’t like to share his things, and even Kabuto is left to wayside. Though she isn’t sure of the exact moment when she becomes the favorite, she knows that it happens, and she knows it makes her nervous.

Orochimaru eyes her as though she’s an experiment as she trains herself in what comes back to her slowly—a glowing ball of pure lightning wrapped around her hand, a fire jutsu no one can imitate, a kekkei genkai that labels her as someone important, once. Her taijutsu is something unique, she finds, and her chakra control good enough, but not perfect. During the day, she exhausts herself, because if she’s tired, then she doesn’t dream of those first few days she remembers. It doesn’t take her long to learn what pleases Orochimaru and what doesn’t, and despite Suki’s original reservations about him, her primary goal by the end of each day is just to make her sensei proud.

Figuring it out on her own isn’t difficult, but whenever she finishes on days he’s there, Suki still says, “Was it good, Orochimaru-sama?”

“There’s always room for improvement,” Orochimaru answers. “I expect a better performance tomorrow.”

The negative reply is never a deterrent. Recognizing disappointment is easy, and it’ll happen eventually; she’ll know once he hits her. Until then, she’ll just have to work to improve herself every day, and hope to delay that response as long as she can.

 

 

After two months together, Suki fails repeatedly at summoning snakes, and she knows the punishment is coming. Instead of doing so there in the training area, they end up in Orochimaru’s bedroom, and she assumes blatant favoritism means this is supposed to be done away from potential curious eyes. It’s not until she’s flat on her back on the bed, shirt peeled from her body, that she realizes what’s about to happen.

“The outside of your body needs to stay unblemished,” Orochimaru says, pinning down her hands as she starts to struggle with one of his own, “but there’s more than one way to prove a point.”

Though she knows it’s useless, she tries to fight him off. When that fails, she tries not scream.

She succeeds in neither, and he seems to enjoy the struggle.

 

 

After the first few times, Suki gives up trying to to get away, or make Orochimaru stop. Things are less painful that way.

Kabuto’s nicer on those days, rather than jealous. “Ask to go on a mission,” he says, “if you can find the right moment.”

As much as Orochimaru claims he doesn’t want to leave marks, more often than not, she ends encounters with bruises. That’s when she goes to the medical wing, even if Orochimaru doesn’t like to share. “He keeps saying I’m not good enough.”

“You have a kekkei genkai,” Kabuto says, finishing with her wrist. “Field experience is the best way to learn.”

Maybe he’s right, maybe he isn’t, but Orochimaru’s always in a better mood...after, and she supposes she can ask then. The thought of leaving for even a few days is a good one. “He wants me for something else other than just to work for him, doesn’t he?” she says, looking down at her now undamaged wrist. “He makes comments sometimes. In future tense.”

When Kabuto answers, “If that’s true, then he hasn’t told me,” Suki knows he’s lying. Even so, she doesn’t press for the truth, because he’s one of the only people she has to talk to, and she’s not ready to give that up.

 

 

Surprisingly, Suki gets her mission, and even more surprisingly, she’s given a team.

All three members look older than her, even if her age is only guesswork. There’re two boys, Juugo and Suigetsu, and another girl named Karin. The three of them have been working with each other for a while. Just a month ago, Karin and Suigetsu started dating. He seems wary that their new leader is just a kid, while Karin keeps looking to Suki like she knows her from somewhere, though she insists she doesn’t. Juugo just seems relieved he has someone to be third wheeled with.

The mission is simple: route a group of shinobi-for-higher too close to Land of Sound’s border with the Land of Hot Water. “You’re kind of small,” Suigetsu says, which is stupid, because girls aren’t normally that big. His teeth are sharp, and his irises a solid color. “No cursed seal or anything. Have something to make up for it?”

Orochimaru hasn’t explained the cursed seal, exactly, but keeps saying Suki will understand in a couple of years. Sometimes, though, she feels eyes on the back of her neck, or Orochimaru licks at her collarbone, and she has a feeling she doesn’t want to know. “I have a kekkei genkai,” she says, because teammates shouldn’t hide skills from each other, and risk distraction in the middle of a fight, “and I’m fast. Come on. We’re leaving.”

Somehow, they make it out of the mission with minimal injury, and rapid success. Suki feels lighter than she has in months.

 

 

Orochimaru lets Suki keep her team, because she does so well at feigning indifference towards them. It’s not really all that unexpected that by their third mission together, all of them figured out why she ignores their hellos in the hallways, and they try to finish the job up as quickly as they can so they can procrastinate on the way back.

Though she doesn’t say it, and they don’t say it, she appreciates the effort. By now she just lets Orochimaru do whatever he wants, but that doesn’t mean Suki likes sex anymore than she did in the beginning. The only thing that’s changed is she’s forced herself to stop thinking of it as rape. Orochimaru saved her life, as he keeps reminding her, and offered her protection, which he never _had_ to do. Rape happens during interrogations between enemies, not between instructors and students. Suki’s not that weak, even if she feels that way when she’s stuck beneath him.  

Convincing herself of this would be a lot easier, too, if her team didn’t act like she, the best out of all of them, needs some sort of protection.

Now they’re in the Land of Lightning, in the north of it with the mission finished a week early and still two away from home. “We should give our team a name,” Karin says on their first extra night, where they lay out on their bedrolls under the stars. They’re all from different places, and have different words for the constellations. Suki, whose memory is just as blank as it’s always been, barely remembers anything about Land of Fire’s beliefs, and can’t name any but Amaterasu’s Loom. “Shinobi teams are supposed to have names, right?”

“Missing-nin teams usually have stupid names,” Suigetsu says, and out of the corner of her vision, Suki sees her two friends join hands. Juugo, who notices it too, rolls his eyes. His calmness from releasing all his adrenaline in the fight earlier should persist for another few days. “We’re closer to missing-nin than actual shinobi.”

In Oto, no one’s a shinobi or kunoichi in a legal sense. Suki has the skill of a jounin already, according to Orochimaru on the days he’s in a good enough mood to offer compliments, but girls who’re hunted by their village don’t get official ranks. “Suigetsu,” Juugo says. “Was there really a team of missing-nin from Kiri called the Demon Brothers? Because that’s—”

“Suki!”

The world is bright and hazed red and clear and she realizes she’s accidentally shifted her eyes. Karin’s arms wrap around Suki from behind, holding her in place, and she’s distantly aware that she’s sitting up, shaking. Her hair, out of its usual careless bun, falls over her face as flimsy protection. It’s not a memory, exactly, but it’s like she woke from a nightmare, and she thinks, for some reason, of scarecrows dying and the feeling of needles in her skin.

As Karin’s pulls Suki back to her, Suigetsu asks, “Did you go against them or something, Suki?”

Karin smells like blood and disinfectant from the fight. “I have no idea,” Suki answers, and tries to remember anything that makes sense.

Nothing comes. She’s not surprised in the slightest.

 

 

In a mission in the Land of Rivers, Suigetsu is injured by an earth user, and Suki kills eight men on her own by electrocuting them to death. Scorch marks from lightning needles decorate the trees, dead fish float by in the stream, and the edge of the chokuto she’s barely big enough to remove from its sheath is coated red. “All that for me?” Suigetsu says, rubbing the already healing area of his arm, the fix quick courtesy of his girlfriend. “Aw, I’m touched.”

Before Suki can tell her friend to shut it, her kekkei genkai fades of its own accord, and the chokuto drops from her grasp as she falls to her knees. “Should I,” Juugo starts, but is cut off when Karin says, “We need to hide. More shinobi are coming.”

These eleven men were the mission, and Suki should’ve known the flashes of lightning would attract attention. She grabs her chokuto again, trying to ignore the spots in her vision, and stumbles after the others, walking down the stream to cover their tracks, and eventually ducking for cover under the roots of a tree. Though she feels like a liability, she knows she’s in no position to be running, and Suigetsu isn’t really, either.

They’re far away from the clearing, but not so far away that she can’t make out the forehead protectors of the new shinobi. It’s a four man team, one that doesn’t look familiar, but the Konoha symbol is still clearly visible. “This is disgusting,” a blonde girl is saying as Juugo tenses up, realizing the same thing. He calms just enough when Suki puts a hand over his shoulder. “Asuma-sensei, what did this?”

Nudging one of the corpses over with his foot, the jounin sensei answers, “Nothing good. This is Kawaguchi Hideyoshi of the Black Stone, one of the deadliest missing-nin from Iwa. Konoha’s wanted him dead for years. And that is Yugamori Riku, our target.”

“This wasn’t fire,” one of the boys says, his hair gathered high on his head. “This is lightning. Well, lightning projectile and some form of straight blade. Kawaguchi’s tall. Look at the way he was hit. Whoever the attacker is was short.”

“Like a kid?” the second boy says, frowning down at the man Karin stabbed in the throat. “Or a girl?”

The sensei crouches down in front of the Iwa-nin. “That’s a girl’s kunai,” he says. “The hilt’s thinner. I’m not liking these marks. These weren’t electrified projectiles; they were thrown lightning. Anyone in Kumo will tell you how hard that is. We should go.”

“We aren’t going to look into this, Asuma-sensei?” the second one says, and shuffles away from a corpse. “Our target’s all taken care of already.”

“These weren’t Konoha-nin, and we aren’t in the Land of Fire,” the sensei answers. “We don’t know if whoever did this is a friend or an enemy, and I’m not pitting the three of you against anyone who can take down Kawaguchi.”

An hour after they’re gone, Suki and her team finally crawl out from under the tree. “That was close,” Karin says, flopping on her back. “What does Konoha want you for anyway?”

With a shrug, Suki says, “Your guess is as good as mine,” because she likes them a lot, and would rather lie than lose them over something she doesn’t remember doing.

 

 

When Orochimaru casually mentions Suki’s ready for more difficult missions, he also says it’s time the team changes to something more suitable. “Why?” Suki asks, schooling her face to a masking of uncaring. They’re in the closest thing Orochimaru has to an office, covered in scrolls and decorated with petrified snakes. “We’ve learned to work together. They’re more a scouting force than a fighting one, but I can carry that on my own.”

His eyes narrow, pupils shifting into slits. “Teams change all the time, Suki,” he says. “I hadn’t realized you’d gotten attached.”

“It’s not that,” she says. “They’re all more useful than most of the idiots here. We’ve never been ambushed, even after four months. The girl’s too good at reading chakra. Suigetsu’s a good spy; I’d rather send Juugo in as a distraction than myself. Living’s a fun pastime of mine.”

Between Karin’s ability to sense an enemy from long distances away, and Suki’s eyes, they’ve never had to use anyone for a distraction, but Orochimaru doesn’t need to know that. “Besides,” she continues before Orochimaru can answer, “they’re dead loyal to me already. I might not lay down my life for any of them, but the same can’t be said for them. You don’t need to worry about anything happening to me.”

“Attachment is dangerous, Suki,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “You wouldn’t want a repeat of what happened to your old team, would you?”

“If I didn’t know any better,” she says with a smirk, “I’d say you were jealous.”

Voice sour, he says, “You know better than to jump to conclusions.”

Regardless of what he denies, they both know how possessive he is, and Suki is strongly aware of how precarious her position is with her team. Though Kabuto has his moments, they’re still the only people in this place that make it bearable. “Don’t worry, Orochimaru-sama,” she says, swallowing down a taste like shame gathered in the back of her throat, “you’re still my favorite person.”

Orochimaru fucks her even harder than usual, hand tangled tight in her hair, and Suki moans through it, forcing herself not to scream or cry.

In the end, she gets the keep her team.

 

 

A Summoning scrolls for hawks falls into Suki’s hands during a mission in the Land of Wind not long after her “birthday,” and though it’s been a week, she can still feel the phantom sting on her face where Orochimaru slapped her for talking back. If the others noticed her fighting wasn’t as neat as usual, they’ve been good enough not to comment.

“Do you still want a name?” she asks when the mission is done, and they’re all crowded in a small room at a local inn.

Karin doesn’t lift her head from her pillow on the other bed when she answers, “I’m always up for being a loser.” She and Suigetsu are taking one bed while Suki takes the other, and Juugo insisted yes, he absolutely _wants_ to sleep on the floor. No matter what he says, though, she knows it’s just so she can have some space. In Oto, the idea of her own bedroom is a thing of the past. “What were you thinking?”

“Taka.” Her Summoning scroll is on the end table next to Karin’s glasses, a bad placement for both items, and all of them are too tired to care.

“Better than half the other ones I’ve heard,” Suigetsu says, half-asleep. “Isn’t that sort of like naming this Team Suki, though?”

Before Suki can answer, Juugo says bluntly, “Hawks kill snakes.”

There’s a short pause. “Yeah,” she says. “I’ll take first watch if any of you want to sleep.”

He sits up. “I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours,” he says, and she rolls over, facing the wall, too sapped of energy to argue.

 

 

“Just because you can fly,” Juugo says, “doesn’t mean one of us can’t still follow you.”

If Suki could’ve, she would’ve asked Garuda to bring her higher up the mountain, but she knew he wouldn’t hang around just so she could mope. As much as she didn’t want to be followed, it’s not as though she wasn’t expecting it. “I need a few minutes alone,” she says, keeping her back turned when her friend comes to sit near her, not too close, and definitely not too close to the cliff’s edge. Below her, the valley of Megumareta no Yama sprawls out in a crisscross of tableau stretches and farmland. Night’s fallen, and all the people of the Land of Grass should back in their homes. “You don’t need to babysit me. Leader’s orders.”

She doesn’t care if she’s acting childish. He ignores anyway. “You calm me down all the time,” he says. “I’m just returning the favor.” When she doesn’t answer, he continues, “You don’t need to be embarrassed. We all still turned out okay.”

Getting pinned was a careless mistake; she heard Karin shout like she was in pain, and Suki lost her concentration, giving her opponent time to get her on the ground. Her battle sense left immediately, and she froze. Though she doesn’t want to admit it, she barely remembers anything between feeling the hands on her wrist, and when the blood splattered across her face from Suigetsu cutting the man’s jugular. She told herself repeatedly that Orochimaru doesn’t scare her, but for a moment, she was expecting to feel her clothes stripped off, not a wakizashi to her heart.

“What made you go there willingly?” she asks.

Though she doesn’t look behind her, she can feel Juugo’s gaze on her back. “I thought it would help.”

“Did it?”

“Yeah.” He pauses. “You help.”

Helping through the genjutsu doesn’t seem much like helping at all. “Well, don’t bother ever trying to help me,” she says, flicking a pebble over the edge. “That’ll just get you killed.”

With a noise of light indifference, Juugo says, “Tell that Karin. She’s the one who would claw someone’s eyes out for you. I think she’d actually be able to pull of it off, too. Those nails are sharp.”

Orochimaru doesn’t like the share, something the others don’t seem to understand. For their sakes, she hopes they never have to.

 

 

By name but not description, Suki’s sparse profile ends up in the Bingo Book with a startling high bounty on her head. Orochimaru’s so calm and understanding that she’s both scared and suspicious within minutes, and discovers quick enough she had right to be. “They took Juugo,” Suigetsu says after dragging her into a closet far from Orochimaru’s room. “Fucking Oto Four goaded him into it by insulting you. You know how he gets. It was totally set up. Anything you can do about it?”

When she shakes her head, reluctant to admit it, she thinks Suigetsu’s about to hit her. She deserves it; she told Juugo not to help her, because she knew this would be the result. Instead of even trying anything, though, Suigetsu just grits his teeth, and his “Fuck everything” comes out in a hiss under his breath. “If there was a survivor, Karin would’ve known,” he says, which Suki was thinking, too. “Someone on the inside leaked the information, I’m guessing. We’re safe for now, I think, but watch out. If you get hurt, my girlfriend will probably do something stupid.”

“She’s just as temperamental as Juugo,” she says, trying not to think about what must’ve happened to him. Quick deaths are considered too kind in Oto. “Make sure she doesn’t fly off the handle at something, too.”

“Well, Karin can keep her head when she knows she’s at risk,” Suigetsu says. “Should’ve known teaming up with you would get us in trouble one day. You’re lucky I like you.”

“Don’t let anyone hear you say that,” she tells him. Juugo liked her too, and it hadn’t gotten him anywhere. “That’s how I get you killed. Wait before leaving.”

By some miracle, no one’s nearby, and even if she can’t do anything for Juugo, she can at least make sure nothing happens to the others, too.

 

 

When Team Taka isn’t given a replacement, Suki’s just relieved, and none of them mention it.

“This better not be the thick syrupy kind,” Karin says on their first mission without Juugo, eyeing the bottle of plum wine she stole from their target’s kitchen. “I’m a lightweight, so don’t expect me to be competent in a fight after two cups.”

“I’ve never had alcohol before,” Suki says, and neither of them seem surprised. “We probably shouldn’t get drunk now that I have a half a million ryo bounty on my head.”

With a shrug, Suigetsu says, “Not everything’s like the older generation’s old warfront stories. A toast’s point isn’t always to get drunk.”

Karin pours the wine into paper cups they found along with bottle. “I feel _so_ classy right now,” she says, and Suki accepts the one she hands her. “Don’t drink too fast, Suki, that always leads to bad consequences. To Juugo, who at least managed to take the Oto Four down with him.”

The plum wine is disgusting, and sweet to the point of harshness, and the aftertaste is a bit like blood. It’s appropriate and fitting, which only makes Suki hate it more.

 

 

Maybe the worst thing about Orochimaru is that no matter what he does, Suki still wants his approval. “I’ve learned how to record and adapt my opponents’ techniques,” she says when Orochimaru calls her for a report on her latest mission. Even with Juugo gone, they’re as easy as they’ve always been. “It uses more chakra than if I use fire or lightning, but I can copy lower level nature transformation based jutsu that I don’t have an affinity for. I took out a wind user with her own attack.”

Lately, Orochimaru’s been distant, pulling away, and she doesn’t understand what she’s done wrong. They’ve barely even touched, and though she thought she’d feel better about that, instead she’s worried. Karin said she seemed distracted. Suki’s somewhat surprised she was even able to finish the mission as efficiently as she did.

“Mission completed with all instructions?” he says, not even looking up from the scroll he’s pouring over. “No survivors?”

“Yes, Orochimaru-sama. Success in all areas.”

She hesitates a moment too long, mildly panicked, and finally, he looks up. “Is there something you want to ask me, Suki?”

After a moment of debate, she answers, “Did I do something to disappoint you?”

“Did I give you any indication you had?” he says, straightening, moving from the desk. “I wasn’t aware you thought so highly of my opinion.”

“I—well, uh—”

It’s almost frightening, how relieved she feels when Orochimaru pulls her closer, carding his fingers through his loose hair. Though Suki doesn’t remember who her parents are, she still manages to feel like a kid, because kunoichi aren’t supposed to want attention.

He notices, as he notices everything, and offers his attention generously after he’s taken what he wants, too.

 

 

In the end, Orochimaru notices everything, and Suki should’ve known better than to smile in a conversation with Suigetsu and Karin while still in Oto. Any act of indifference was torn to shreds.

Though Suki expects Orochimaru to be angry, he’s unnervingly understanding about it. He calls her to the bedroom earlier than usual, and says, “I’m not going to deny you friends, Suki.”

It comes across so blunt and honest that she believes him. “Thank you,” she says. “We’ll finish the mission quickly.”

As she leaves, she thinks of Juugo, and how things are often too good to be true. She tells herself, or hopes, that this time is different.

 

 

Suki doesn’t have a problem with killing, on normal occasions, but no one warned her the targets had a son. “What are we supposed to do?” Karin says, voice cut by the sound of the little boy banging his fists against the closet door. “I’m not killing a kid.”

“None of us are killing kids,” Suki says, and even Suigetsu, the one willing to do anything, seems nauseous at the thought. “Karin could drop him at the orphanage at the end of town.”

“And have him tell everyone he saw us?” Suigetsu says. “You might be immune to dying, Suki, but we’re still disposable.”

Something like terror settles over Suki as she says, “I’ll use genjutsu. Wipe his memory of the whole night. No trauma. He won’t remember us.”

Karin and Suigetsu glance at each other. “If he doesn’t remember,” she says, “then no one has to know. A five-year-old is the sort of thing that ends up on a report, you know?”

With unanimous agreement, the three of them kill their perfect success rate. Karin stands against the wall as Suigetsu pulls open the door, and when the little boy comes tumbling out, hands in mid-bang, she catches him under the arms. “Suki, now!”

Suki digs into the boy’s memories, and rips the night away, giving him instead a dream about sakura blossoms on the breeze, and a calm lake disturbed by a light wind. Everything goes better than expected, and he falls limp in Karin’s arms, blonde hair in his face, and blood on the side of his palm.

“I’ll take care of the kid,” she says as Suki stands. “Go to the meeting point.”

Together, she and Suigetsu walk the twenty minutes it takes to reach their destination, and Suki tries to ignore the disquiet growing in the back of her mind.

 

 

The kid wasn’t listed as some sick kind of test, and the resulting failure leaves Suki with a bruise on her cheek, and body wracked with pain from sex she said no to too many times to deny it was anything other than rape.

Later, when she loses the edge of her quick temper, she says, “I’m sorry.”

Everything hurts, but he forgives her with a gentler touch. For some reason, she’s stupid enough to, again, believe this is the end of it. Sometimes it’s amazing, how bad she is at learning her lesson.

 

 

Finally, Juugo’s replaced, clearly as a sign that while Team Taka works well together, they still need to be watched. Suki’s past the point of arguing, close to a nervous breakdown already more often than not these days. As distracted as she is, it doesn’t cross her mind that the replacement could be here for anything other than babysitting duties.

Midway through a fight, she releases a series of lightning needles for an enemy moving towards Karin, and Juugo’s replacement knocks Suigetsu directly in the way. He falls sideways, too fast to catch himself, and the attack shoots through his chest.

Karin screams, sound shrill, and the replacement babbles about not understanding their synchronization. Though Suki screams, too, it’s from a sudden pain behind her eyes, burning like fire. Orochimaru tried to warn her this would happen, that history would repeat itself, and she hadn’t listened. Now her teammate, her _friend_ , is dead, by her hand. She wonders even through the haze of pain if she can lose her kekkei genkai by killing someone she cares about.

Then one of the Kiri-nin says, “What the fuck just happened to the kid’s eyes?”

The scenery is bright, and all movements even clearer than before. Everyone but Karin stares, confused or scared, and Suki _sees_. A few feet away lies Suigetsu, blood pooling across the grass. First, she thinks, It’s all my fault, followed by, Not entirely.

She doesn’t know where the black flames come from. She doesn’t care. Her left eye is bleeding, running down her cheek, and she and Karin are standing untouched in a circle of people burning alive. Though Suki should care, she doesn’t, because everything hurts, and Suigetsu’s dead, and as abruptly as it came, the clarity fades.

“Not you, too,” she hears Karin say, but Suki loses consciousness before she can answer.

 

 

Something changes along with Suki’s eyes. “I killed all of them in less than a minute,” she tells Orochimaru when she and Karin return with just Suigetsu’s body. “The other one got in the way.”

As Suki turns to leave, Orochimaru says, “I warned you. Attachment is dangerous.”

“Well, I guess I’m not that good at listening,” she says, pausing. “What can I say? I had a great teacher.”

In her stress and anger, her eyes flash without her meaning to activate them. “You’d be wise to watch your tone,” he says, and she fluffs out her hair, still half-wet from her recent shower. He doesn’t make a move to touch her. For the first time, she has some measure of power.

“We should probably figure out what I can do,” she says, and smiles. “Can Karin and I have a new mission, Orochimaru-sama?”

It’s a question that isn’t a question, and two days later, she has a file in hand with the mission specified as a two person team.

 

 

Karin isn’t angry, though she should be, and instead clings. As selfish as it is, Suki’s relieved, because she clings right back. She never asked to be here; Karin never asked to be on a team with Orochimaru’s favorite. All Suki wanted was a few friends and a chance to leave for a few days at time, and she’s so afraid she’s going to lose Karin, too.

“Do you ever think about running away?” she asks a few days into the first mission after Suigetsu’s death when they’re curled together on the on the same bedroll, one of her legs thrown over Suki’s. “Running away sounds fucking great.”

Though it does, she knows Orochimaru would hunt her down and drag her right back. Not only that, but as much as she hates him for what he did to her team, and as much as he terrifies her sometimes, she’s gotten too dependent to leave now. “Please don’t,” she says instead of admitting all this. “I know—Konoha’s still after me, I’m pretty sure. One or the other would catch me, and either way, you’d get killed, too.”

Karin doesn’t answer, and Suki closes her eyes, pressing her face into the bedroll. “Why does Konoha want you?” Karin asks. “I know you know.”

“I killed my whole team on a mission,” Suki answers quietly. “Orochimaru didn’t hear why. The extraction team tortured me so badly I snapped and can’t remember anything.”

There’s a long pause before before Karin says, “That sounds like complete bullshit.”

The thought crossed her mind once when Suki realized genjutsu didn’t work against her, but she’s refused to let it since. “Well, it’s not like I can just approach a Konoha-nin and ask,” she says. “We should get some sleep.”

Not having a watch is a bad idea, but Karin just says, “Yeah,” and lets that be the end of it.

 

 

A few missions later, what’s left of Team Taka fights off a target so powerful Suki has to use every trick her new eyes give her. It’s not far from Oto, thankfully, because Karin has to lead her back hand in hand.

When they explain the situation, Suki has her eyes activated in their lesser form, and even Orochimaru’s a little worried, if the pattern of his chakra is anything to go by. Kabuto kicks out a patient of lower priority, lies her back against the cot, and exams her. “I can’t find the source of the problem,” he says, which is bad, because he’s the best medical-nin she knows. “How much can you see?”

The blindness affected her the moment the fight ended and she deactivated her kekkei genkai. Even Karin couldn’t fix it. “Everything’s blurry,” she says, squinting at him. “It’s gone out completely a few times. There’s nothing you can do?”

He places two fingers glowing with chakra below her left eye. “Your eyesight should be as perfect as it always is,” he answers. “I can’t heal something that’s not there.”

Crying is for the weak, but she relies on her sight for everything. The tears come, and Kabuto doesn’t comment. She appreciates it more than he knows.

 

 

When Suki’s in Oto, she can navigate it blind, or with the lesser form of her kekkei genkai, even when after a few missions she loses her vision completely, but the same can’t be said for the outside world. She can sense chakra enough to fight without her sight, or not to walk people, but inanimate objects aren’t something she can feel her way around, and red eyes are suspicious. Sexuality isn’t terribly important in most places, thankfully, because the solution is to walk around holding Karin’s hand like Suki’s her blind girlfriend.

Orochimaru pays Suki less and less attention, even though her skill level is better than ever. She’s imperfect now, and he doesn’t like imperfection. It bothers her more than it should, but she’s used to this confusion. “Do you need help with anything?” she asks after she returns from a short mission in the Land of Frost.

A pen scratched against paper. “No,” he answers without explanation. “If you want to be occupied, I can offer you a longer mission.”

That wasn’t what she meant, but still she says, “Thank you, Orochimaru-sama.”

He leaves her a file she gives to Karin to read. Suki tries to pretend she isn’t disappointed in herself for whatever she did, and fails dismally.

 

 

Suki didn’t have time to extinguish the black flames when the Konoha-nin show up to investigate, and she and Karin clutch at each other behind a lower wall, the furthest they could go without attracting attention, hiding their chakra signatures. “This is a problem,” says a man’s voice. “The only thing that cause fire like this is a Mangekyo Sharingan.”

A woman says, “You’re joking,” and Suki doesn’t have any sense of familiarity. “Shisui?”

She grips Karin’s hand tighter, and pictures, suddenly, red eyes like hers, and rice paper. “Shisui can’t do this,” the man says. “Each one’s different. Kakashi explained it to me.” Suddenly, Suki can’t breathe, and Karin digs her nails into the back of her hand before she does anything. “And look at that. Lightning marks.”

“This is the Land of Lightning.” He doesn’t answer. “Wait. You mean like _his_ lightning?”

After a short silence, he says, “The pattern’s same. These flames burned the rest of the enemies alive, so either this one escaped, or died first. Kurenai, there’s only one Uchiha in generations that’s affinity is lightning.”

“They never did find a body,” the woman—Kurenai—says. “I said the extraction squad should’ve been more thorough instead of just declaring her dead.”

“If there’s a Uchiha running around out there we’d know.”

“There are people in Konoha that didn’t know she exists.”

Sighing, he says, “We have to go tell the others. Uchiha’s sister had enough issues already. I don’t even want to think about what could’ve made her snap.”

If Konoha calls a search party, Karin will probably suffer for it, if not Suki too. She activates her kekkei genkai, looking to her friend, who nods once in understanding, and Suki jumps over the wall, alerting the attention of the Konoha-nin. “Suzu,” Kurenai starts, but she and the man are walking away without any memory of this before she can even finish.

Suki extinguishes the flames, and takes Karin’s hand, trusting her friend to lead her home.

 

 

Orochimaru’s gone for the day, and Suki’s alone in the bedroom. “Uchiha,” she says aloud, surprised by the comfortable way her mouth forms the word. “Sharingan.”

Though she doesn’t know for certain, she thinks she just found out her surname, and her kekkei genkai. Something sounds wrong with Uchiha Suki, but there’s something wrong about Suzu, too, and she doesn’t ask Orochimaru what he thinks.

 

 

The problem with two people needing to cling to each other is that after a while, things get messy. It doesn’t help that Karin’s still grieving, and Suki’s confused to the point she doesn’t know what to feel. She isn’t sure which of them initiates it; all she knows is that an inn is a lot better than the outdoors.

Karin’s lips are softer than Suki expected, and Orochimaru never kissed her, so this is new territory. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands, either, but her friend doesn’t seem to care. “Let someone actually make you feel good for once,” she says, running her hand down Suki’s side so light it makes her shiver despite the heat blasting from the radiator. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful not to leave marks.”

With the Sharingan activated, she can see every dip and inconsistency in Karin’s chakra, and it’s different movement than her usual. One moment she’s above Suki, who’s on her back, the move comfortable position because it’s what she’s _use_ to, and then the next, Karin’s between her legs. Suki’s spent years convincing herself she enjoys sex with Orochimaru, but she’s forced now to admit it’s all lies, because it’s never felt like _this_. Maybe she’s just into girls. Maybe he’s just bad.

She doesn’t last long, a sensation she’s never felt before hitting her suddenly, twitching her hips, and when Karin lifts her head, glasses askew and looking unafraid right at the Sharingan, she’s grinning. “That, Suki-chan,” she says, “was an orgasm.”

Suki returns the favor, and reduces her friend to a quivering puddle of shivering chakra. If there’s one thing to be said about Suki, it’s that she’s quick learner, and everything is easier when it’s fun.

 

 

On a mission in the the Land of Wind, Suki and Karin are separated when Suki misses a jump while they try to hide from a group of Konoha-nin. She’s too exhausted to activated even her normal Sharingan, and ends up in a cramped, unknown space with no idea where her friend is.

“I’d know her shurikenjutsu style anywhere, Gai,” someone says, clearly agitated, and Suki tries, and fails, to activate her Sharingan, because the voice is so familiar it hurts. “I’ve known her since she was six.”

“It’s been two and a half years, Kakashi,” another man says, softer. “We would know if she was alive. Someone else could have a similar style.”

The first man lets out a low sigh. “There was never a body,” he says. “She’s not dead.”

Suddenly, someone lands on her, and before she does anything, she registers the hand over her mouth as Karin’s. Above them, the second man says, “It might be better if she was. It’s a better ending than what Orochimaru will give her in a few months.”

Suki tenses. What’s that supposed to mean? Orochimaru might be _distant_ lately, but he’d never hurt her. It’s just these Konoha-nin trying to justify what they’d do to her instead, she tells herself, and doesn’t believe a word of it.

“You’re right,” the first one says. “We should fan out anyway. With what just happened with the Kazekage, I don’t want to take any chances.”

Karin leans over until she’s right next to Suki’s ear. “This is a crawl space,” Karin whispers. “I’m going to get in front. Follow me.”

After she moves, Suki rolls over and wiggles into the darkness, away from the Konoha-nin, and away from answers to questions she doesn’t know how to begin to ask.

 

 

Suki initiates sex with Orochimaru, which is rare but not unheard of, and does everything she knows makes him happy until he’s ready to give answers. “You seem so distracted,” she says, half in his lap, and looks at him with sightless eyes as she strokes him back to hardness. Her hair’s down, as he likes, and her head hurts from it being tugged. “I feel bad that there’s nothing I can do to help.”

“I’m almost finished with preparations, Suki,” he tells her. “You can help me then.”

He runs his teeth down her throat like a promise. She thinks the Konoha-nin might’ve been right.

 

 

A few days later, Suki explains everything to Karin the moment they’re out of the Land of Sound. It’s easy, telling secrets to Karin. With her around, no can sneak up on them. “I’m freaked out,” Suki says. “I mean, sure, it might’ve been overdramatic or whatever, but what’s worse than death? Or do you think I’m overreacting?”

Karin pulls Suki closer as the path narrows, and answers, “Do you trust me?”

“What?”

“Do you trust me?”

She activates the Sharingan, eating away at her chakra but needing to see her friend. Though Karin’s eyebrows are set with determination, Suki can’t glean anything else. “Yes?”

When Karin kisses her, it’s sweet, and a little sad. “I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you,” she says, and Suki believes her because friends aren’t supposed to lie.

 

 

Suki’s out of chakra, down to one kunai and her chokuto, and can’t see. The fall off the cliff that’s distance she didn’t estimate correctly leaves her with a fractured wrist, twisted ankle, and a few cracked ribs. To make it worse, she doesn’t know where Karin is.

The Konoha-nin came from nowhere, somehow hiding their chakra signatures even from her, after Suki and Karin just finished fighting off an Akatsuki member, going by his cloak. Running seemed like the best option, giving the state they were both in, but then Karin lost her grip, Suki hit a root, and now she’s here. Falling down into crawl spaces and shallow ravines is degrading for someone of her skill level, and she seems to be making a habit of it. It’s better than getting captured, she thinks, but as she forces herself up, limping and feeling along the dry stone cliff face, she doesn’t feel convinced.

When the team of four surrounds her, she pulls out her last kunai, the space too narrow for the chokuto, knowing she can at least defend herself in this state until her friend can make it down and act as her eyes. Someone’s on her in a moment, though, arm around her middle as he pulls the kunai from her hand. “We’re not going to hurt you,” says a voice that leaves her paralyzed and shaking, “little sister.”

Before she can answer, two fingers press against the pressure point in her neck, and everything fades. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suzu begins the long road of recovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay! School's taking up so much of my time, and I'm a slow writer.

Suki wakes up on a hospital cot, and for a moment, thinks she’s back in Oto with Kabuto. Then she feels the chakra blocker on her left wrist, shackling her to a railing, and remembers the voice and the fingers to her neck.

“Don’t try to move!”

She freezes midway through trying to sit, because Karin’s voice clashes with the whole idea that Suki’s back in her home village. There’re bandages around her eyes, too, which doesn’t make sense, as the handcuffs stop her from using the Sharingan. “What’s going on?” she says, confused. “Why can’t I move?”

Even more confusingly, the mattress shifts, and Karin’s hands touch Suki’s right, unbound one. “Your ribs are still screwed up,” Karin says. “Healing your wrist and eyes took a lot of chakra, I guess. Suki—”

“My eyes?” Suki says. “Wait, but—”

“The Hokage of Konoha is Tsunade,” Karin says, and Suki’s inability to breathe properly has nothing to do with damaged ribs. “You know, best medical-nin basically ever? Kabuto’s pretty great, but even he’s not _that_ good.”

For Karin to be moving around, she can’t be handcuffed, or locked down. She’s free. As impossible as the idea of Suki’s eyes being healed is, the thought of her best friend betraying is the one she can’t wrap her mind around. “That ambush wasn’t an accident,” Suki says, and when she tries to sit up again, Karin pushes her down by the shoulder. “Why?”

There aren’t many people in the world Suki trusts, but Karin she did unconditionally. “I was just trying to save your life,” Karin says, and adjusts her hold, slotting their fingers. “Look, I know it sounds weird. I started putting it together a while ago, back when you said the thing about getting tortured. Genjutsu doesn’t work on you in the middle of combat. But it can if your chakra’s blocked.”

“But—”

“Your old team’s alive,” Karin continues. “And, I mean, every single one of them. It’s kind of nuts. Remember when you fell into that crawl space? I tried to double back around, but they caught up to me. They didn’t know a Uchiha Suki, but they knew a Uchiha Suzuki. We, uh, sort of questioned each other. They said they’d go back to Konoha for your brother then stay in the area. Next time we went on a mission, I’d use a clone to contact them. You being scared confirmed everything they said. I know when people are lying, and they weren’t.”

“I don’t get it,” Suki says, trying not to panic. “I—so he was lying? What was going to happen to me?”

For a moment, Karin’s quiet. Then she says, “There was always this rumor going around that Orochimaru was dying, and he was, like, going to switch bodies with someone, but we never thought it’d be _you_. You’re a girl, and you don’t have a seal, and he hurt you _way_ too often, but apparently it’s because he couldn’t get his hands on your brother or something? He wanted the Sharingan. Made sense why he didn’t give you the seal right away. You freaked just thinking about it, and let’s face it. You can probably kill him by blinking at this point.”

Suki takes a deep enough breath to make her ribs ache, and looks away, though the action’s pointless when she can’t see a thing. “So, basically,” she says, “everything’s reversed?”

Karin lightly squeezes her hand. “Yeah. There was a guy here who’s able to check around people’s minds. You’ve got a block on your memory that isn’t from any Konoha-nin.”

Even after she organized a kidnapping, Suki still trusts Karin more than anyone else. She knows when a person’s lying. She’d never intentionally put Suki in danger. That, at least, she knows with complete certainty. “He’s going to kill us, you know,” she says. “I wasn’t kidding when I said running away was a bad idea.”

“I don’t think so,” Karin says. “This whole village thought you were dead, and now you’re back. If anyone ever tries to make it through the gates, they’re dead.” Again, she quiet, before adding, “I was just supposed to be here to make sure you didn’t panic and hurt yourself when the your parents—I know, I know, just go with it—come to talk to you, but I should probably get them. They’re really nice. Just...you’re not in any danger, Suki. At all. Neither of us.”

In Oto, Karin was always in a constant state of danger. Apparently Suki was, too, or whatever her name is. She’s not ready to talk to the mother and father she doesn’t remember having. “Okay,” she says, looking back in the direction of Karin. “I’ll do it.”

The mission before Karin got her kidnapped, Suki told her friend she trusted her. Now it’s time to see if she made the right decision.

 

 

There’s no reason Karin would lie, Suki tells herself as she waits. Orochimaru, though, lied often. He also never said what happened to her family; he didn’t know, for one, and for another, it didn’t matter whether they cared for her or not with the village after her. At the same time, she doesn’t know how much she trusts the situation. Just because Karin’s telling the truth doesn’t mean Konoha can’t be lying to her somehow. There have to be ways.

When the door opens, Suki startles, and forces herself to sit up, regardless of her friend’s warning. A moment later, someone settles on the bed near her knee, sinking the mattress, another in a chair, and she smells lilacs and wood smoke. “Hello, Suzuki,” a woman says. “I’m your mother—”

“I’m your father.”

“We missed you.”

Suki shrinks away, afraid, because there’s something familiar about both of them, and she doesn’t want their be. “Uh, sorry,” she says. “I don’t recognize either your voices.” It’s not true, necessarily, but she’s learned by now that sometimes lying is easier.

“We thought you might not,” the man, or her father, says, and the chair squeaks. “We can remove your bandages, if you want. The lighting in here is dim enough that it’ll hurt, but it won’t do any damage.”

After having her sight blocked for so long, she isn’t ready to see. She nods anyway, and then thin fingers touch her hair, unraveling the tie of the bandages. They fall all at once, and the light does hurt, but she’s looking around a room not twinged in red, and two people without the flow of their chakra visible. She feels almost normal, but she doesn’t recognize either of them.

They look like her, she sees after a moment. She has the woman’s cheeks and eyes, and narrower form of her body, but the man’s nose and mouth. Objectively, she recognizes the similarities as blood relation, but she doesn’t feel anything to indicate parents. “Sorry,” she says again. “Still nothing.”

“We know,” the woman says as the man looks to her, and she runs her finger down the side of papers in her lap. Suki has the woman’s hair, too, except hers is nicer. “There’s something I want to show you, Suzuki. May I move closer?”

Warily, Suki nods, and she doesn’t have any connection to the name, either. The woman adjusts herself, sitting parallel but half off, clearly making an effort not to let them touch. The man doesn’t move, already hunched in the chair next to them. “Your friend explained why you tried to stay away from any Konoha-nin,” he says as she shuffles what Suki now sees as pictures. “The team’s name is Team Kakashi. They’re all alive.”

As the woman holds a photo out, she says, “This was taken the day you became a gennin,” and Suki accepts it. There’s a pink-haired girl half crouched in front, arms tucked in front of her with a smile bright on her face. Behind and to the right is a blonde boy with scratches on his cheeks, the grey-haired, masked sensei’s hand on his head. Suki herself, just a kid in this, is on the opposite side, back slightly with the sensei’s arm around her shoulders, frowning. There’s an indentation on her back, rough beneath her fingers, and when she flips it over, she finds messy messages scribbled in cheap pen. “My nickname’s Suzu?”

 _We’ll be the best team ever, Suzu-chan - Naruto_ , reads the first one, and next, _Smile next time - Sakura_ below it.

“Itachi started it,” the man says. “I mean, your brother. You couldn’t pronounce your full name when you were little.”

The first Konoha-nin she encountered called her Suzu. “Itachi,” she repeats. “Is he the one who found me?” The two exchange a look, and before they can get their hopes up that she remembers something, she adds, “The person who knocked me out called me ‘little sister.’”

Uchiha Itachi’s a name she heard more than once, because he’s one of the most famous shinobi alive. If he’s really her brother, then Orochimaru must’ve known. Suki knew he was a liar, and more often than not she was afraid of him, but she hadn’t expected this.

Maybe they’re lying to trick me, she thinks, but then looks back to the woman with her identical hair and identical eyes and doesn’t believe it.

“He was one of them,” she says, then points to the photograph. “They found you first, then went back for him.” Moving to the sensei, she continues, “This is Hatake Kakashi. He worked with your brother for a long time. You’ve known him since you were little. That lightning technique of yours was his originally.” She points to the other students. “This is Naruto. He spent half your Academy years trying to impress you when you barely knew he existed. And this is Sakura. You two used to train together after you became teammates.”

Suki stares at the photograph for a long time, trying and failing to recognize anything, before looking to the sensei. “I heard Hatake Kakashi talk once,” she says. “They’re really all alive?”

“Yes,” her mother says, “and hoping to see you soon.”

Suddenly, her hair shakes, fingers losing grip on photograph so it falls to her lap. “Sorry,” she says. “This is just a lot to take in.” She struggles to breathe normally, wondering how she didn’t see this for herself earlier, and her parents wait, as if they’re used to her panicking. Glancing at the other photographs, she says, “The family?”

As she hands the photograph over, her mother says, “This is from Itachi’s eighteenth birthday, also when you were twelve. Neither of you like cameras much, but we convinced him to hold you in place for a minute.”

Though Suki looks a lot like her mother, it’s nothing compared to how much she resembles her brother. She’s in a white and red striped t-shirt or dress, wrapped in her brother’s arms so her own are pinned to her side, and again, she’s not smiling. “I don’t recognize him at all,” she says, more frustrated now, because with the way she looks at this age, she and the boy in the photo could be twins, and despite the scowl, she can tell she was happy. “I mean, clearly we all look so alike that—what’s that one?”

Again, her parents exchange a look, before her mother holds it out. “Outside of Itachi, you were closest to your cousin,” she says as Suki accepts it. “This is the three of you when you became a chuunin.”

“You were the only one of two to be promoted during your exam,” her father says. “After enough congratulations, you came home early. That’s when this was taken.”

In this, she’s finally smiling, wide and cheerful with her hair falling out of her bun and into her face, and dressed in a golden kimono with autumn leaves. The boys’ yukata are plain in comparison as they sit on either side of her, the unfamiliar one’s head on hers while Itachi holds one side of the promotion certificate and she holds the other. She didn’t know it was possible to miss something she couldn’t remember, but she misses this.

Then the obvious occurs to her and she asks, “How old am I?”

Her parents don’t seem surprised by the question. “Fifteen,” her father says, “as of last month. Your birthday is July twenty-third.”

“Suzuki,” her mother says. “How old did you think you were?”

“About sixteen,” Suki answers, dizzy with a mix between an odd certainty that this is true, and an inability to remember to remember anything. “What’s going to happen to me?”

As she turns back to photos to her mother, unable to look at them anymore, her father says, “That’s up to you. You can try to talk to more people, see if you remember over time, or Itachi can remove the genjutsu for you.”

Karin said there’s a block in Suki’s mind that doesn’t come from Konoha, which must mean it’s from Oto, and doesn’t know how she feels about having anyone else in her head. If she doesn’t remember her own parents, though, then she probably won’t remember anyone. “Can I just avoid the whole list of people, then?” she says, deciding it’s the lesser of two evils. “You’re my family, I get it. I just want to get this over with.”

Though they both seem doubtful, her parents agree. “Everything’s going to be okay, Suzuki,” her mother says before leaving, and kisses the top of her head. Even if Suki isn’t entirely sure she believes all this yet, she’s willing to accept it as fact.

 

 

Suki knows Itachi from the photographs, and his voice from her capture, but similar to her parents, she doesn’t feel anything. “I need you to be sure about this, Suzuki,” he says, occupying her—their—mother’s earlier spot. It’s been almost a day since she woke, and she still hasn’t seen the Hokage. “This is what you want?”

“Are you asking my permission?” she says, surprised, because though her parents gave her a choice, it’s been a long time since someone other than Karin explicitly asked for permission before doing something to her. “Seriously?”

“This is going to hurt,” her brother answers and, more surprising, her own eyes in their lesser form suddenly reflect back at her. “Removing another person’s genjutsu isn’t a clean process.”

What he’s saying, she thinks, is that she’s not going to be fixed right away. “I’m sure,” she says. She isn’t.

As the lines in his Sharingan spin, her heart rate increases, and the chakra dampener on her wrist sparks in her effort to activate her own. “Keep your eyes on me, Suzu,” he says, and then there’s a pain her head, long lasting and sharp.

She screams.

Things stop making sense, after that.

 

 

After Suzu speaks with the Godaime about as much as she can bring herself to (and the Godaime, who did the medical examination, doesn’t press for details), her last few days in the hospital are filled with visitors. Even with her memories slowly coming back to her, she’s confused, and though she knows everyone’s disappointed, she’s still the most comfortable around Karin.

On Suzu’s last day in the hospital, though, they sit on the narrow bed together, pressed so close they’re mutually supporting each other. “You and your parents invited me to stay,” she says, “so I’m occupying the guest room for now. Your third teammate, though, the one that isn’t in Konoha—his name’s Uzumaki, which means he’s my cousin, right? Might stay with him when he gets back, if he wants. Having blood family sounds cool.”

Suzu’s mind might be muddled with half-memories and information that doesn’t always connect, but she knows her friend better than she knows anyone else. “This is because of Shisui, isn’t it?”

After a moment or two, Karin says, “Yeah, a little, maybe, sort of.”

Arranged marriages are so stupid, especially to cousins, even if they are third cousins. It hadn’t bothered her when she was younger, and she didn’t understand the concept of holding a conversation with more people than she had to. Now she likes Karin more than she should, given Suzu was always Orochimaru’s and she’s the one who killed Suigetsu. At least she thinks she does anyway. Things are complicated in a way they weren’t before. Half the time she doesn’t even know who she is.

This is what she does know, with the closest thing to certainty she has: Orochimaru kidnapped her on her second mission as a chuunin, her first without Kakashi, and then spent two and a half years tearing her down. It was clever; he took away her name, her age, her family, isolated her as much as he could so she was forced to grow dependent on him. Giving her friends must have been a purposeful decision, too, she thinks. He could’ve fabricated the whole situation just so she could develop the Mangekyo Sharingan, and probably didn’t know it would cause her to go blind.

If she had to guess, though, she’d say he hadn’t counted on how much her team cared about her, too.

“I can’t see that actually happening anymore,” she says, knowing by now that there are some things it’s better she keeps to herself. “At least my family and his should know everything. Even if you ignore pretty much everything else, I’m still the crazy girl who barely knows her own name.”

She’s spent most of her hospital stay delusional, recognizing a person or where she is one moment, and then needing someone to talk her back into remembering the next. As expected, the only person exempt from confusion is Karin. “The Hokage told you that you’d get better,” she says. “And I’m still going to be right there if you get scared.”

Scaring Suzu is easy. She adjusts herself, dropping so she can wrap her arms around Karin’s middle. In return, she puts her arm around Suzu’s shoulders. “Okay,” she says, and in a way, wishes she were still blind just so she didn’t have to see everyone’s expressions all the time. “Hey, Karin?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for getting me kidnapped.”

No matter how confused she is, now that she has even some semblance of memory, she’d rather be anywhere but in Oto. Eventually she’ll even be happy all the time that she has her family and team back instead of just sometimes, probably.

Karin presses her face into her hair. “Anything for you, Suki.”

Though Suzu wants to kiss her, she refrains, and thinks Shisui has the right to refuse to marry damaged goods.

 

 

Homecoming is interesting. During the stay in the hospital, Suzu was only allowed limited visitors, so her family interactions were kept to her parents and brother. Itachi gave her facts and faces for the rest, and she’s regained some memory of a few, but she assumed she’d be as blank to most of them as she was to everyone when she first returned.

Then Grandma breaks whatever personal space rule they’d set up, and Suzu almost cries.

She remembers a vegetable garden, and soil caught in the lines of a veined hand of a woman explaining everyone needs a hobby when their knees creak too much to do more than chase grandchildren around the yard. Skip ten years, and maybe nine or eleven, and Suzu’s wrapped in a hug she’d forgotten the feel of. “Welcome home, Suzuki,” her grandmother says, and kisses Suzu’s temple before releasing her.

Her threshold on how long she can be surrounded is still limited, and she doesn’t remember everyone, but Mom and Dad don’t look so ready to usher everyone out. There’re Hachiro and Miku, brother and sister and her first cousins, twins and older, both of whom are married outside the clan without their spouses here, and Miku’s son Naoki, also older. Uncle Masaru and Aunt Kiku, their parents, are here, and one of them is Mom’s sibling, but Suzu can’t remember who. Sayuri, who Suzu abruptly remembers as Itachi’s fiance, or possibly wife by now, hangs back by him, probably not wanting to overwhelm her. As per usual with marriages in into the main house, Sayuri’s related to them somehow, but the best Suzu knows is that she isn’t a first cousin, because that doesn’t happen. Four others are here, too, and much to everyone’s disappointment including her own, she needs introductions. The names are there, but she can’t match them to the faces.

There aren’t four, but five, she realizes, and after the conversation with Karin—after _everything_ with Karin, who’s right there, in her living room, being thanked by everyone, Suzu thought she’d feel awkward. Instead, Shisui’s the first hug she initiates herself since Itachi. “Hey, Suzu,” he says after a short pause, shocked, she’s assuming, putting his arms around her, too. “Oh, uh—”

As embarrassing as it is, she was bound to cry eventually, she thinks, because she’s been a mess for the past two and a half years, and somehow, remembering is worse, but now she’s _home_. She spent half of her childhood with scraped elbows and knees, following Itachi and Shisui through the cobblestone pathways and into the woods, or clinging to their shirt hems, returning home to fresh cooked meals and shouts to clean off her hands. The knowledge of this, still half forgotten but at least there, comes back to her without warning, surrounded by people, and she doesn’t understand how she was ever able to lose any of of it.

She’s distantly aware of everyone leaving, because she’s reached the point where she’s too overwhelmed to handle so many people and accidently made it obvious. Though she knows she should let go of her cousin, she doesn’t, too afraid she might fall over if she tries. “I’m sorry,” she hears herself say, not meaning to, even as she clutches at his t-shirt. The apology isn’t for the tears. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he says. His grip of her grows more secure. “Cry as much as you want, Suzu.”

A hand touches her back, in between his arms. “Do you want to go lie down?” says Itachi. She nods against Shisui’s shoulder, trying to stabilize herself. It’s the three of them, even though her parents and Karin must be in the room somewhere, and she feels twelve again, scared and shaking from something she can’t remember.

Itachi helps her back, away, untangling her from their cousin. As she wipes the tears from her face with the back of her hand, he says, “Come on. I’ll show you your room.”

Though he helped her with people, she doesn’t remember much about places. “Okay,” she says, and then her parents reenter the room, sad, small smiles on their faces, as Karin hovers by the door.

Tomorrow Suzu will probably wake up confused again, not entirely sure where she is, but for now, she feels like she knows enough. For now, she’s willing to take these moments where she can get them.

 

 

When Suki comes back to herself, she’s upright in bed, Itachi’s arms around her as he rubs her back, telling her, “It’s just a memory, Suzu, you’re home safe now, in Konoha.”

Her name’s not Suki. It’s Suzu, Suzuki, and she’s fifteen-years-old, the youngest member of the Uchiha clan, and only daughter of the head family. This is her fifth day back home, in Konoha, with her parents and brother, and Karin lives three doors down. So far, she hasn’t been allowed to see her friends outside of those first few days in the hospital.

Slowly, she gains awareness of the situation—her outheld arm, lightning sparking between her fingers, and charred marks on the wall. The room’s washed over red, and as she deactivates her Sharingan, getting her breathing under control, she sees her dad, his face white, sitting against the floor, while her mom very clearly breaks a genjutsu. His own Sharingan is activated, but it doesn’t matter, because the only one with eyes to match hers now is Shisui. Karin has a hand on Suzu’s arm, unafraid of the lightning, her hand’s shaking.

Fuck. Suki—Suzu just attacked her own family.

She loses the tension in her body, arm going lax in her friend’s grip, and Itachi’s hold is too steady for her to drop. “I’m sorry,” she says, curling up as she presses her forehead into Itachi’s neck, too scared to look at anyone. “I’m so sorry. I don’t—what happened?”

“We were just talking,” Dad says, confused but even, “and you panicked.”

After a week, Suzu panicking isn’t uncommon, but she has set things that cause it. Though it hasn’t been long that she’s here, it’s long enough that they can at least figure out what sets her off. Maybe this was inevitable, for her to do so over nothing.

Then Karin puts it together, because Karin knows everything, and says, “You didn’t touch her hair, did you?”

“I didn’t know,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Mom says, “It’s just habit from when the two of you were children,” and Itachi’s breathing shallows. The Uchiha family’s known for its intelligence; Karin’s question should be all it took for them to know why.

There’re days when Suzu is caught between Suzuki and Suki, and when she peeks through her bangs to her friend, everything slides back into place.

 

 

The morning after the incident in the bedroom, Suzu finds a pair of scissors and goes to her mom. “Can you cut it?” she asks. “Just to my shoulders. Please?”

In the silence of the back washroom, midway through a Sunday afternoon, Mom snips away at Suzu’s hair. Despite its length, it doesn’t take long, and after Mom’s done, she turns Suzu to the mirror. “You look beautiful, Suzu,” she says, and smiles.

Suzu barely recognizes herself with her hair evened out to her bangs, just brushing her shoulders and the base of her neck. This is a good thing, because she never wants to feel someone’s hand in it like that again.

 

 

It takes two weeks before Suzu’s allowed out of the compound, and even then, she’s not allowed out alone. Unlike most of the occasional returning missing-nin, this isn’t because she’s on probationary citizenship. According to Itachi, who’s the most honest with her, the rules are a mix between their parents’ and the villages’ for her safety. Considering she’s forgotten how to get to Shisui’s three times in twelve days, she’s not protesting.

For the first time since her release from the hospital, she’s not with her family or Karin, but instead walking down the quiet backstreets with Kakashi and Sakura. Though Suzu talked to them in hospital, she’s still having trouble catching her mind up to reality, because she spent over two years being told she killed them.

“If you go that way,” Sakura tells her after twenty minutes of aimless conversation, pointing to the left down a dirt path, “you’ll reach the main square with the market and the Hokage’s Tower and the hospital. I work all day whenever I don’t have a mission, so if you ever need me, I’m probably there.”

Suzu finds that not knowing her way around is embarrassing enough around her family; admitting she barely remembers anything to them—her _team_ —is somehow even more humiliating. “It’s not just you,” Kakashi says before she can mumbles a way out of also admitting she probably won’t remember the directions later, either. “The Oto and Suna-nin did a lot of damage during the chuunin exams a couple of years ago. Half the village was rebuilt and redesigned.”

Maybe it’s just because of who it involved, but she remembers the disaster of her chuunin exams better than most of her life prior to waking up in Oto. The Kazekage’s Shukaku form’s made its way into enough recent nightmares that it’s inevitable. “Wasn’t the Hokage monument cracked?” she says. “Was anyone able to fix that?”

The other two share a look she doesn’t like as Kakashi says, “They fixed what they could. It’s only noticeable if you’re paying attention.”

“Mostly it just looks like a wrinkle,” Sakura says. Her hair sways around her shoulders as she walks, matching the sunset. “One of your aunt and uncle’s roof had to be replaced. Hinata’s house was almost completely rebuilt. But that was before I moved into an apartment, and the residential areas were all fine, so mine was intact. Kakashi’s wasn’t.”

“I had to live with Gai for a week,” he says, and when Suzu doesn’t show any sign of recognition at the name, adds, “He’s the one with the green body suit.”

Though the image doesn’t cause her to remember anything, she does connect the name to the person Kakashi was talking to in the Land of Wind. He thought she was dead. “I thought the one who did that was our age,” she says, because she remembers Lee vaguely enough. “Or around our age.” Most days she doesn’t know if she’s fifteen or sixteen, or why it matters so much to her.

“He got it from his sensei,” Sakura says. “He used to try to pick a fight with you all the time. Actually, he was probably the only one wasn’t offended when someone called a girl better than him.”

Right now, Suzu doesn’t feel like she’s better than anyone. Instead she feels ripped apart, and weak. “Does Naruto know I’m back?” she asks, because she remembers that he stopped being annoyed that she was ranked higher than everyone quickly, too. “Or is he completely cut off?”

She doesn’t know if she can handle his energetic personality in the state she’s in, but she’ll recognize him. That means a lot to her, too, even though it doesn’t sound like it should be that hard. Itachi might’ve tried his best, but two years under such a strong genjutsu is a long time, the Godaime said.

“We sent a message,” Kakashi says. “If it reached him, it shouldn’t be long until he comes back.”

That’s not a definite, but it’s good enough for her anyway. “Can you show me how to get back?” she says, looking behind her to the way they came, unable to remember if their third turn was a right or left. “I’m tired.”

Kakashi puts a hand on her back between her shoulders and turns her around, not calling her out on her lie. As much as she wants to talk to them, she can only deal with so much at once, and reached her threshold. Eventually she’ll get better, but for now, this is the best she can do.

 

 

Suzu hasn’t spent time with Shisui alone, or at almost at all, since she returned. Before she left—was taken—they were almost as close as she and Itachi. If Shisui knows the distance is because of Karin, he hasn’t let on. More likely, no one’s thought that, and drawn their own conclusions. Maybe they’re even right. The Godaime’s medical report wasn’t sparse on the details, apparently.

Now they’re alone, though, by the lake in the dark because she wanted to clear her head after a nightmare, and he’s only just returning from a mission. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear,” he says when he joins her on the dock, where she sits with her feet dangling over the edge, “but you shouldn’t be wandering around alone at night.”

As she’s surrounded by family, the best clan in Konoha, and still skilled enough herself even without training in a few weeks, she thinks she can survive the compound. “I’m not planning on leaving or anything,” she says, keeping her eyes on the ripples she creates on the lake. “I just needed to be out.”

“I figured,” he says. “Is Itachi gone?”

With a short nod, she says, “He left this morning.”

Though logically Karin, as a chakra sensor, should wake up at anything, she could sleep through an ambush without someone there to shake her. It’s Itachi who’s up the moment Suzu has a nightmare, forcing her to calm down until she can fall back to sleep. Maybe it’s a good thing he has a mission for a few days, despite the risks; he gets a respite from having to deal with her in the middle of the night.

She isn’t surprised Shisui found her instead.

“You’ve always had trouble sleeping at night,” he says after a moment. “I’m pretty sure that’s why you can sleep until ten if given the chance. But you’d get a lot worse when Itachi was gone. Which is weird, because it used to be I was the only one who could get you to sleep.”

“Were my parents aware you were using the Sharingan on me?”

“No, they had no idea.”

The water ripples as she runs her foot across, black in the moonlight. “I’m getting better with my memory,” she says, “but sometimes I wake up and I can’t remember my name.”

When he puts his arm around her, the movement is casual and familiar, and she instinctively relaxes into it. “You know now, right?”

Again, she nods. Then she asks, “Why weren’t you the one who dealt with me in the hospital? You have the strongest eyes.”

Though Itachi’s control is perfect, Shisui’s known for what he can do with genjutsu. Sometimes the Mangekyo Sharingan can be an advantage instead of hindrance, and he’s the example of how to use it correctly. “I’m family, but I’m not immediate family,” he answers. “They just wanted to keep it to them and your team so you wouldn’t be overwhelmed. I guess the idea was that you’d remember them better.”

In the months between her kidnapping and the chuunin exams, she was with her team almost exclusively. She understands the logic, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. “I heard your name once,” she says. “Like right after I went blind. I remembered your eyes.”

Obviously startled, Shisui says, “I thought you didn’t remember anything.”

She shrugs. “I just didn’t want to say anything,” she says. “Kind of awkward explaining the only thing’s your specific Sharingan, right? I guess it makes sense if you used to use it on me.”

He’s quiet for a long time before leaning his head against hers. “I’m here for the next week minimum,” he tells her. “If you need any help, all you have to do is ask.”

“Yeah,” she says, “I will.”

Even with the added confusion of Karin on top of enough confusion already, Suzu wants her friend back, and when she says she’ll go to him, she means it. There’s something said for remembering his eyes, and if at all possible, she’d like to know what that is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh. I kind of realized it didn't make any sense that Itachi wouldn't have someone, and I couldn't think of anyone in canon, so random OC alert.


End file.
